A voter’s registration system has a purpose of, well, registering voters. This has two sub-purposes: one, to determine the citizen’s voting district and, two, to enable authorities to check the signature of the voter in order to determine whether, for instance, a candidate seeking to be registered as such has gathered a sufficient number of supporting signatures.

As explained in an earlier post, Lithuania’s system does not involve either sub-purposes. They never check signatures against any registry. They don’t have a voter’s registration system.

That’s why I call that which they have an anti-system. It serves no reasonable, democratic, purpose.

What determines the geographical area in which a citizen is allowed to vote in Lithuania? A registry of inhabitants.

All inhabitants must be “registered” into a government-approved address. Obviously, there is no requirement to actually live there. Many live in so-called “sodai” (little houses built in the country-side in collectively owned Soviet era “clubs”), which are not capable of being used as official residences. The system, thus, has falsehood built into it. It is normal to have friends register one in their apartment whilst one lives wherever.

The inhabitant registration system has little utility. Nevertheless, it remains, somewhat as an “extra” appendix. There is a cost of upkeep, there are circumstances when it is troublesome, but in general, it has little meaning. One cannot state that in registering oneself one actually is stating that one is residing at the address given: it is more of a formal requirement.

Now, there is a new party trying to get elected, and it has a good deal of support. Its leader is one Venckiene. She is from the Kaunas region, but she has chosen to run for office in the area where an arch-enemy, the present speaker of the parliament, is running. This is a voting district in Vilnius.

So – her supporters have been … re-registering themselves in the aforesaid Vilnius voting district!

Indeed, they have registered 1500 people into one apartment!

I love it! They are turning the system against itself. The authorities are having fits, but since the system is vestigial at best, there is little they can do about it.

Note: the stakes are high. If Venckiene beats the present speaker, she will at the least have gained even more moral authority.

This just in! The present speaker of the parliament has demanded that the voting commission stop the ongoing registration into the “ghost headquarters,” but the commission has replied that they are powerless to do so …

I suppose I should explain. When one has a normal voter’s registration law, obviously submitting false information, such as a false address, would and should be a punishable offense. One in that case has obviously tampered with the voting process, fraudulently.

BUT there is no voter’s registration in Lithuania. There is only the inhabitant – registration system I described above. It is not fraudulent to register oneself anywhere one likes. One must register, but that is it. One can register anywhere.

So, in this “system,” Lithuanian citizens can register as they please. They are not per se committing any fraud. It is not their fault that the “system” then uses this data to determine where the aforesaid citizen can vote.